You may have already caught a glimpse of this on my Facebook page but aside from taking an opportunity to cross-post between various social channels I want to acknowledge this man's immense legacy since he's now - or would be - into his second century.

A thankless job you say? Not at all! His reward was the destruction of a passionate career, professional marginalization and criminal charges that led to the ignominy of chemical castration all of which cast an indelible shadow over his life's work. Humiliated and legally bound to secrecy, his depression and suicide hardly made the news since he was a relative unknown when he took his own life at age 41 in 1954.

To be fair, the British government promptly issued an apology for "what happened to him"- in September 2009 - "on behalf of all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work". Just so you don't think they don't care, you see? Public petitions to grant him a posthumous pardon continue to be rejected. Because you've just got to draw the line somewhere: war heroes can't be allowed to get away with being homosexual. No sir!

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